There You Were Again
by allialli
Summary: Dana Scully is a teenage mother ready to embark on her first year of college. She's independent and strong, but when Fox Mulder comes along, he changes her perspective on life and love. Rewrite of my 2008 story.
1. Chapter 1

**a/n: I'm back. I'm back to do this story right.**

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**There You Were Again **

**by: allialli**

Screams and shrieks were coming from delivery room 229 of St. Vincent's Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Delivery screams. Bringing new life into the world screams. There were other screams coming from nearby rooms that weren't much different than room 229's. However, the person in 229 was much different from all of the other people in the delivery rooms at that hour. Yes, she was about to give birth. Yes, she was sweating and in pain. Yes, had prepared herself for this day for nine months.

But nobody was quite like 17-year-old Dana Scully.

"Come on Dana, just a few more pushes and he'll be out. You're doing great," the doctor encouraged the girl from between her legs. Dana Scully, who was aspiring to become a doctor herself one day, seriously doubted the nice man's words. If she were doing great then why had she been in labor for 21 hours? If she were doing great then why was she squeezing her mother's hand so hard that she could see her fingers turning dark red? If she were doing great then why was she here now, on this table at 17 with no boyfriend by her side and a newly-limited future? There were a lot of things Dana thought that she was at the moment, but "doing great" wasn't one of them.

"It hurts!" she wailed out in pain as she felt her vaginal walls stretch to their limits. What had they actually given her when they said they gave her an epidural? Dana was sure that it wasn't working.

"I know baby, but he'll be here shortly. Your little boy will be here soon," her mother assured her from the side of the bed. Aside from the doctor and nurses, her mother was the only other soul in the delivery room. The last nine months had been a whirlwind, with telling her family and having to work through the various other aspects of life as a teenager. But what the past nine months had assured to Dana, if not anything else, was that she only needed her mother there.

"Alright Dana, I can see the head. Just a few more pushes come on now," Dr. Schall said happily. Dana was not feeling happy. At the moment of her most intense pain, Dana Scully pushed as hard as she could and began to see stars behind her eyelids. Then, an intense warm gush from between her legs and it was over. She took in a big breath as she heard her mother start to cry. And there were new cries in that room. Tiny baby cries. _Her_ tiny baby's cries.

Dana had barely even opened her eyes before the squirming body of her child was placed on her chest. He was crying and wriggling and still attached to her, but it was love at first sight. Maggie looked over her daughter and new grandson as she cut the umbilical cord. The love in Dana's eyes was so real and so pure that there would be no doubt among anybody that she was looking at her child for the first time. Relief washed over Maggie. She had been worried, because of the circumstances, that Dana would feel cold toward her son.

"Have you thought of a name sweetheart?" a nurse asked, hardly interrupting Dana's first moments with her son.

"William. William Alan Scully."

What had happened hadn't been his fault.


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n: thanks for all the reviews and support. it feels great to be back in this story!**

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What happened hadn't been his fault. He hadn't asked for his father to physically violate his mother one night at a high school party that she hadn't even wanted to be at only three months after they had started dating. He hadn't asked for his mother's lost virginity also result in his conception. He hadn't asked for a prosecutor to drop his mother's rape case due to lack of evidence either, but all of these things happened. If he were older, he would wonder how his mother could love him given what it took to bring him into the world. Scully had not yet committed herself to ever sharing the gruesome details of his existence with her son. What would he think of himself?

Dana sat on the couch on a sunny Maryland morning three months later holding the large envelope in her shaking hands, not sure if she should rip it open now or wait until she was more ready. It was the envelope that would determine the rest of her life, and her child's. After getting pregnant she had worked harder than ever to get herself through school, particularly because she knew that many girls in her position didn't make it to the end. She graduated high school six months earlier than the rest of her class on track to be the valedictorian and immediately started general education classes at the local community college. But she had had her heart set on one college even since before she got pregnant with William: Georgetown University.

_Mom, I'll never be able to make it into Georgetown, _she remembered crying into her mother's shoulder the night after she had received her diploma. She had always been the child who excelled the most. In her family, in her neighborhood, in her school. But there she was, pregnant and due next month, worrying about her dreams to become a doctor. Worrying had become the norm for Dana and it wasn't going to get any better.

Those words were coming back to her now, as she sat on the couch, three-month-old William laying in his carrier before her feet. Her mom was sitting across from her, and they were the only two in the house.

"Open it honey," Maggie gently encouraged.

"I can't," Dana's voice was wavering.

"You're never going to know until you open it."

"Maybe I don't want to know."

"Dana, I don't understand what you think you have to worry about."

It was everything. It was how her grade in her microbiology class at junior college had been steadily slipping since Will had developed colic the week before. It was how she hadn't been able to be as involved during her last semester of high school, something she knew colleges were staring to look for in addition to grades. It was that she felt her mother had too much faith in her. It was that she couldn't afford to falter now that her sleeping son was depending on her to get things right.

When her daughter was silent for a few moments, just staring at the package, Maggie reached over and tenderly took it from her. Dana hid her face as she heard the unmistakable sounds of her future being decided.

It wasn't just her future anymore.

"You got in," Maggie said quietly. So quietly, in fact, that Dana wasn't sure she had heard her correctly.

"What did you say?" she lifted her head abruptly from the pillows of the couch.

"You're in, baby," her mother's eyes had welled up with tears. Before being caught up in an embrace, though, Dana snuck a glance at her carefree baby boy.

I did this for you.


	3. Chapter 3

**happy Monday!**

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"Okay Mom, those boxes are going into Will's room. Dad, you can just put the coffeemaker on the counter for now," Dana directed her parents as they helped her, along with her brothers and sister, to move into her new apartment a few blocks away from her new university. She considered herself extremely lucky to find the place, as well as to have parents that would help her out with the rent and utilities while she went to school. As a younger teenager, Dana had sometimes not been very grateful for all the things her parents had done for her, but ever since she had Will, she could see just how much they really did help her. And they loved her son so much, despite the way in which he came into the world, which everyone acknowledged was neither his nor his mother's fault. The family had tried to go after Dana's ex-boyfriend, Ethan Minette, legally, but their case had been dismissed due to lack of evidence. The fact that Dana and Ethan had been a couple at the time did not help her at all, plus nobody else had seen what had happened after Ethan coaxed her into a darkened bedroom.

Every day, though, it got easier to live with what had happened. Ethan had no idea that a child resulted from his contact with Dana, and everyone was bound and determined to have it stay that way. He was nine-months-old now, and the world was a much better place with him in it anyway.

"Sweetheart, are you sure you don't need any more help unpacking?" Maggie asked her youngest daughter. It was nearing sunset, and the family had managed to get all the large aspects of moving into a new apartment out of the way. All that was left to do was unpack the boxes full of inconsequential stuff, like sheets and books, and Dana just wanted to get settled for the night. Classes were due to start in two weeks, and she knew she needed to get used to doing things on her own very soon.

"We'll be fine, Mom," she rubbed Will's back as he chewed on a teething ring in her arms.

"Are you sure? Because it wouldn't be too much. Oh, how about I get dinner started for you? What have you got in the fridge…" Maggie was jittery, nervous about her daughter living on her own.

"Mom, please. You've done enough. Will you please just step back and let me do this on my own?" Dana didn't mean to sound hostile, and her mother knew that, but it had been a long day for everybody, and Maggie stormed out of the kitchen where only they had been standing. Or so Dana thought.

"Why do you have to do this to them?" Bill, her older brother, questioned as soon as their parents moved out of earshot. Despite his harsh tone, Dana never took her eyes off her task, gently rocking Will back and forth as he whimpered with teething pain.

"I don't know what you mean," she responded, if a bit snarky, because they had had this conversation more than once already.

"Look, Dana, I know you always wanted to go to school and everything, but you have a baby now."

"Oh really? See, I had no idea."

Just to put some space between them, she moved over to the counter for no reason, beginning to mix a bottle of formula even though Will's bedtime was still some time away.

"Stop being fresh. You know how it's killing Mom and Dad to move you and Will out. They're going to be worried sick about you two constantly now, but you don't think about that, do you?"

"I'm scared too, Bill. I'm scared out of my mind. I have to start classes soon, which I know are going to be hard in and of themselves, but I have a baby too. How in the world am I going to protect him? How in the world am I going to juggle all of these things on my own? Yeah, I worry about the same things that Mom and Dad are worried about all the time. But I have Will to take care of and I have to take the first steps out to fulfill my goals in life. And it has to go right because he's counting on me. I'm scared too, but I don't have time to be constantly worried."

"Everything okay in here?" Capt. Scully popped his head out of his daughter's room, where he had been setting up her bureau. He had a clear shot straight down the hall into the kitchen to see his children, and he knew the conversation they were having wasn't pleasant. They never seemed to be between Dana and Billy.

What was more is that there was no secret what they had been fighting about. And most of Capt. Scully believed his oldest son was right. His daughter was just a young woman, and had no business looking after so many things on her own. But a small, strong, loud part of him had immense, immense faith in Dana. His baby girl was no doubt the most capable of his children, he had no problem admitting that to himself. And he trusted her more than a father trusts a child. He trusted Dana with every faith that a parent trusts and understands another parent—he knew Dana had realized that part of herself that had been awakened with motherhood. And that had ignited her ability to move forward at the pace she was.

In short, there was nothing Bill or any of his other children could have said that would have made Capt. Bill Scully not allow his daughter to pursue the life she was choosing. As long as he could be her soft place to land if things ever got to be too much for her, he could be comfortable letting her spread her wings and leave the nest.

"We're going to be okay, Dad. Everything's going to be fine," Dana assured him.

And he truly believed it.

XXX

"Thanks for making dinner, Mom. And thanks for all your help, everybody. I love you all," Dana was surprisingly sad to say goodbye to her family later. With all the struggles they sometimes put her through, she knew it would be ten times worse if she had nobody there for her. She hugged her father.

"Call us if you need anything, Starbuck. We're only in Baltimore."

"I will."

"Sweetheart, I know you said you were going to be using your savings to live off of for a little while, but… I can't leave my daughter and grandson on their own without being absolutely sure that you are going to be free from want," Capt. Scully presented Dana with a credit card.

"Dad," Dana was almost speechless, "Dad, you don't have to do this. I'm going to get a job and we're going to be fine."

"You don't know how much peace of mind this tiny piece of plastic will give me. Please do it for me, Day," her father was on the verge of tears, but it was his daughter's eyes that watered the most as she took the card. Then, after more goodbyes, she shut the door to her new home and looked around.

Two beds and a bath. A new start. William was already asleep in his new bedroom and Dana crept in there to observe him. Sometimes she stood for hours above him as he slept, making sure his chest rose and fell with breath. She thought of her mother and father, who probably had done the same thing for her at one point. And that night, they had had to walk away from her so that she could start her new life on her own.

Dana curled up on the floor next to her son's crib and cried for her future. As a child, she had never imagined being on her own would feel so

On

Her

Own.


End file.
